Abstract
Abstract This review attempts to compile the physics and chemistry of defects in zinc oxide (ZnO), at both, the fundamental and application levels. The defects, either inherent ones or introduced externally, have broadened the ZnO material field in various directions. The ZnO material exhibits many defect-attributed properties leading to broad technological applications: electronic and optoelectronic devices, sensors, optical components, ceramic industry, biomedical, catalysis, lightening, etc. Considering the huge defect-dependent technological scopes, the ZnO material is constantly engineered for various defects, and corresponding functionalities are tailored with respect to particular applications. The functional properties of ZnO are strongly influenced by the defects, and as a result, the defect engineering of the ZnO materials has remained an important motivation in materials science and engineering in terms of localized defects, extended defects, impurities, and surface defects, etc. A detailed characterization of these defects seems to be an essential part of any research area. The correlations of the microstructural characteristics with electrical and optical properties of ZnO are then a natural step for further facilitating an efficient way toward advanced ZnO-based materials and devices. The present review is an effort to shed light on the defects of ZnO, properties, theoretical aspects, and corresponding applications.
Highlights
The word “zinc” has been derived from the Persian word “sing,” which means stone
It is clear that significant efforts have been devoted both experimentally and theoretically to understand the nature and role of these defects
This review provides a brief idea regarding the defects in zinc oxide (ZnO), as this topic is the hotbed for many areas of science and technology
Summary
The word “zinc” has been derived from the Persian word “sing,” which means stone. Zinc ore has been initially used for the fabrication of the copper–zinc alloy, brass, and zinc salts for medicinal uses even before the discovery of zinc as a metal. This diversity in applications of the ZnO in different fields is depicted in Figure 1(a) taken from the Scopus, representing the applicability of ZnO in the various domains of science and technology These nanostructures prove to be important for optoelectronic devices owing to their large surface-to-volume ratio [31]. Polycrystalline, nanocrystalline, or a normal deficient ZnO material shows interesting unique functionalities [23,38,39,40,41,42,43,44], which is significant from both theoretical and application viewpoints Such alleged inferior quality (not regarding virtue) ZnO offers greater adaptability to be used in gadget applications because of the presence of an enormous number of different imperfection species in such a framework [45]. Some general remarks about the defects have been presented, and the last section deals with the applications of ZnO in a variety of scientific and technological domains
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